Saturday, May 9, 2015

Glenn Alan Bates, 57, of Saline schemed to steal money from the VA retail store — or canteen — he managed in Ann Arbor, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.(Photo: Steve Perez / The Detroit News)

A former federal employee admitted embezzling about $150,000 from a Veterans Affairs retail store and blowing the cash on strippers, prostitutes and gambling sprees, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Glenn Alan Bates, 57, of Saline schemed to steal money from a VA retail store — or canteen — he managed in Ann Arbor, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Bates, who was released on $10,000 unsecured bond Tuesday, told investigators he spent some of the cash on a stripper named "Ashley" at an Ohio strip club, according to court records. He said he often spent $500 a night on lap dances — and more.

"After visiting the club numerous times, Glenn Alan Bates convinced Ashley to come to his hotel room for sex, for which he paid her," VA Special Agent Frederick Lane wrote in a court filing.

The hotel trysts were frequent and non-exclusive. Bates said he also met with other strippers and prostitutes, according to court records.

"Glenn Alan Bates stated he became addicted to the sexual encounters and he stole cash from the canteen to pay for this addiction," Lane wrote.

Bates was an assistant coach for the varsity baseball team, varsity girls' basketball team and varsity football statistician, according to the Saline Post. The Post said Bates was no longer involved with the schools "effective immediately."

According to court records, Bates told investigators he spent part of the money at casinos in Indianapolis and Battle Creek.

Bates and his court-appointed lawyer, Stacey Studnicki, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The investigation dates to May 2013 after an audit discovered more than $478,000 missing from the retail store. The store is part of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System on Fuller Road.

The retail stores are operated by the Veterans Canteen Service, a VA branch catering to veterans who receive military health care benefits. The canteens sell food, clothing and electronics.

The VA's Office of Inspector General launched an investigation that focused on cash missing from the sale of commemorative military hats, vending machines and retail sales.

Bates managed the store from May 2006 to March 2013. He told investigators he stole about $150,000, according to court records.

Bates was hired to manage the VA canteen despite an extensive criminal record, The Detroit News has learned.

He served 18 months in federal prison in the late 1970s after being charged with stealing a car, according to the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency.

He also was charged with felony arson in 1992 and sentenced to probation.

During his arraignment in Detroit Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti asked Bates about his current job.

Friday, May 8, 2015

In what was an "unambiguously" unpleasant April jobs payrolls report, with a March revision dragging that month's job gain to the lowest level since June of 2012, the fact that the number of Americans not in the labor force rose once again, this time to 93,194K from 93,175K, with the result being a participation rate of 69.45 or just above the lowest percentage since 1977, will merely catalyze even more upside to the so called "market" which continues to reflect nothing but central bank liquidity, and thus - the accelerating deterioration of the broader economy.

End result: with the civilian employment to population ratio unchanged from last month at 59.3%, one can easily on the chart below why there will be no broad wage growth any time soon, which will merely allow the Fed to engage in its failed policies for a long, long time.

Jihadists beware: You are being used as pawns and useful idiots for a much deeper agenda. The evidence is clear, and the goals are relatively transparent.

The Obama administration plans to begin more military training and arming of “moderate” jihadists in Syria as soon as this week, according to U.S. defense officials cited in media reports. The U.S. government’s stepped-up military support for “vetted” Syrian jihadists is ostensibly aimed at helping them battle less moderate Islamists in ISIS — a terrorist group that both Vice President Joe Biden and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey haveadmitted was armed and funded by Obama’s “anti-ISIS” coalition in the war on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in an interview last month that the U.S. government had been providing support to Chechen Islamist militants in the northern Caucasus region. “Our security services recorded direct contact between North Caucasus fighters and representatives of U.S. intelligence in Azerbaijan,” Putin said in the film, adding that he informed then-President George W. Bush, who vowed to stop the support. Instead, Putin claimed, U.S. intelligence agencies wrote to Russian authorities and said they had a right to back all “opposition forces” in the country.

The Texas counties of Victoria and Goliad, originally scheduled as two of the sites for the massive Jade Helm 15 military war simulation exercises across the Southwest this summer, will no longer host the operations, reported theVictoria (Texas) Advocate. No reason for the cancellations has yet been released.

Covered in depth by The New American, Jade Helm 15 has been the source of increasing concern and speculation among residents of Texas, ever since a map connected with the training operations surfaced that labeled the states of Texas and Utah as "hostile," while more liberal states were tagged as "permissive." Disquieted and unconvinced residents do not trust that the military and federal government are telling them the truth, or that the media is accurately representing their concerns.

The Goliad Advance-Guard noted that the Goliad County exercise was to have been conducted on the famed O’Connor Ranch, property owned by Sheriff T. Michael O’Connor. Various publications have been unable to elicit responses from the Army Special Operation Command, and as of press time, The New American had not received answers from calls to the two sheriffs of Victoria and Goliad Counties.

Mention of "Jade Helm" anywhere in central and south Texas these days will most likely not receive a neutral response. Talk of the controversial military training exercises has been akin to prodding a rattlesnake, polarizing some residents against their county and city governments.

The mainstream media have focused on reporting conspiracy theories, with few interviews of residents in targeted Texas areas — including the small Bastrop County town in which this reporter resides, which will be one of the hosts of Jade Helm. The county will host a large portion of the military events, and sentiment is running high here against the military exercises, as well as against city and county officials for not informing the citizens until after the decision had been made to host the operations. One resident wondered which was more frightening: Jade Helm itself, or a county government so out of touch with its residents that it didn’t realize they would be concerned.

Communities are reporting various accounts of what they’ve been told by the military command personnel. A Victoria resident who closely follows all city council meetings told The New American that there was no mention of the exercise until after it was cancelled. “We never heard anything about it till after the fact," said the resident, "and only then were assured it would only have been out in the county, anyway, and we never would have seen [the military personnel].”

A different report comes from the Bastrop County town of Smithville. One resident remembers the city council meeting at which the plan was announced: “We were told that personnel would be in plain clothes and in uniform, on Main Street, out in the community and would be armed. Since that first meeting, those things have never been acknowledged again, and we don’t feel that our concerns have been acknowledged at all.”

From another, “We’d like Jade Helm to withdraw from our town.” And yet another, “This seems a violation of Posse Comitatus" (a federal law passed in 1878 which forbade the use of the military in domestic law enforcement).

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Recently, news broke concerning Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s announcement that he ordered the commander of the Texas State Guard to mobilize his forces to monitor the activities taking place soon in his state that will be part of a domestic military exercise known as Jade Helm 15.

The governor made the announcement after hearing an outcry from Texas residents who live in counties where the large special operations exercise will take place. Many feared the exercise would lead to a federal takeover of Texas or serve as the start of implementing martial law.

But the Pentagon issued a response to the Texas governor and residents of the state Monday, essentially telling them to chill out — dismissing claims of a possible federal takeover of the state as “wild speculation.”

“Operation Jade Helm poses no threat to any American’s civil liberties,” Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.

Jade Helm 15 will involve thousands of special operations military personnel, including Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Green Berets and similar units training across seven states, including Texas, which was labeled as “hostile” for training purposes.

A spokesman for the Texas State Guard, a state-based military force that answers to the governor’s office and cannot be pressed into service by the federal government, said, “The Texas State Guard stands ready to support the governor of Texas when called upon to serve.”

While many Democrats and even a few Republicans blasted Gov. Abbott for his actions, 2016 presidential hopeful Ted Cruz defended the governor, saying, “You know, I understand the concern that’s been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm.”

He added, “When you see a federal government that is attacking our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights, that produces distrust as to government.” (H/T McClatchy DC)

There seems to be a split among Texans as far as concerns Jade Helm 15, which is set to launch in July. Some cities held council meetings allowing U.S. Army officials to present their operational plans for within city limits, allowing them to vote whether or not to allow the operation to move forward in their city. Many voted yes.

But there are plenty of citizens who smell trouble, standing by the idea that Jade Helm 15 is part of something much more sinister than a simple training exercise.

Technology experts and a former government official say that ["direct access"] phrasing, taken from a PowerPoint slide describing the program, was likely meant to differentiate Prism's neatly organized, company-provided data from the unstructured information snatched out of the Internet's major pipelines.

In slide made public by the newspapers, NSA analysts were encouraged to use data coming from both Prism and from the fiber-optic cables.

Prism, as its name suggests, helps narrow and focus the stream.

So PRISM leverages the direct access the NSA has to the Internet's major pipelines and then uses court orders authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to collect specific data from tech companies.

[UPDATE 7/11] Here's the corresponding PRISM slide, published by The Washington Post:

NSA

Here's how the AP explains the court order part (emphasis ours):

Every year, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence spell out in a classified document how the government plans to gather intelligence on foreigners overseas.

By law, the certification can be broad. The government isn't required to identify specific targets or places.

A federal judge, in a secret order, approves the plan.

With that, the government can issue "directives" to Internet companies to turn over information.

While the court provides the government with broad authority to seize records, the directives themselves typically are specific, said one former associate general counsel at a major Internet company. They identify a specific target or groups of targets. Other company officials recall similar experiences.

All adamantly denied turning over the kind of broad swaths of data that many people believed when the Prism documents were first released.

Here's where it's still murky — the government has a authority to take troves of data, and wants as much data as possible, but tech companies say they aren't providing broad swaths of data.

When PRISM leaked, The Washington Post reported that the 702 orders given to tech companies "serve as one-time blanket approvals for data acquisition and surveillance on selected foreign targets for periods of as long as a year."

Tech companies say it doesn't play out that way.

Microsoft said in a statement: "We only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers."

Google chief architect Yonatan Zunger wrote that Google only responds to "lawful, specific orders about individuals.”

And Facebook revealed it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data in the second half of last year, and said "we respond only as required by law."

So it remains to be seen how just much data the NSA can acquire from tech companies.

It should be noted that in July the court that was established to "hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance," called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), found that government 7o2 orders at the heart of PRISM had violated the Fourth Amendment's restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures "on at least one occasion."

As part of the PEN World Voices Festival, the international press freedom organization scheduled an event this afternoon titled, “Finding Security in Unsafe Passages: United Nations Event about Protecting Journalists’ Safety and Rights.” The panel, according to PEN’s website, will “delve into the wide range of risks journalists face every day. Experts will offer safety tips, share advice for protecting sources and copyrights in all types of media and address cybersecurity risks.”

But on the morning of the event, a spokeswoman for the festival, Kyla McMillan, notified the Observer that we had been denied entry. “The press is no longer able to attend this event,” said Ms. McMillan by email. “There has been an issue with press authorizations through U.N. security.”

UPDATE 1 (12.47pm): Ms. McMillan elaborated in a second email and by phone: “Please accept my sincere apologies—the U.N. requires that all press visiting the headquarters, for any event, have an official U.N. press pass. Due to a miscommunication, we’ve not been able to secure this for you in time.” She added that her team was unaware of United Nations’ rules regarding media credentials and that a total of four journalists have been disinvited.

Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of PEN’s Free Expression Programs, and one of the panelists at United Nations event, criticized the decision.

“One would think the more coverage for these types of issues would be better because these are really serious issues that journalists are facing,” Ms. Deutsch Karlekar said, “so discouraging journalists from covering the event just seems odd.”

UPDATE 2 (1.05pm): Ms. Deutsch Karlekar added by email that “it seems that due to a snafu with these U.N. rules (that we were not aware of until late last night), it won’t be possible to add anyone else on to the list. I am really sorry, and as I said, it does seem extremely odd to be keeping press out of the event.”

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Warning of a coming race war, talk-radio host Michael Savage, appearing as a guest on Alex Jones “Infowars” program Monday, said President Obama would deputize and arm gang members such as the “Crips and the Bloods” to keep order in American streets.

“Has there been a civil war? Yeah, it’s a slow-burning civil war. What do you think we are looking at here? It’s a race war. These are their shock troops, they don’t have the brown shirts yet, they don’t have the armbands, but soon Obama could deputize them. Isn’t that a natural army for him, Alex? Take the Crips and the Bloods, give them a green uniform and give them a weapon and they’ll keep order in the streets. Won’t they?”

Watch video of Michael Savage’s comments:Savage’s vision is not unlike that sparked by critics of then-candidate Obama’s plan, announced at a 2008 appearance in Colorado Springs, to create a “civilian national security force.”

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we set,” Obama said at the time. “We’ve got have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

“For several days now, WND has been hounding Barack Obama’s campaign about a statement he made July 2 in Colorado Springs – a statement that blew my mind, one that has had me scratching my head ever since,” he wrote at the time.

“In talking about his plans to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps and the size of the nation’s military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge: ‘We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.’”

“Now, since I’ve never heard anyone inside or out of government use the phrase ‘civilian national security force’ before, I was more than a little curious about what he has in mind,” he wrote. “What does it mean?”

Farah pointed out that a “massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together” would be startling.

“The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn’t count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion. Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that?” he wrote.

See Obama’s Colorado Springs remarks:

Savage told Jones that Obama has “the gangs on the streets on his side, he’s got them awakened, he’s got them armed – they’re armed to the teeth with illegal weapons.

“You’re going to see more race war right up until the Labor Day of 2016 for an obvious reason,” he said, referring to the presidential election.

Agreeing with Jones that Obama’s agenda is succeeding, Savage warned: “The guillotines are ready, the guillotines are ready and they are greasing the blades. How much more successful can they be? Internment camps? I mean, what is next with this group of maniacs?”

Savage said Americans can’t count on the military to protect them from Obama because his administration has purged military leaders who were competent to do so.

“One general after the other was purged like Stalin purged them, only instead of shooting them first they smeared the generals,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s going to come down to the camps, the internment and the martial law … I think it would upset the economy and the world.”

Watch more video of Michael Savage’s comments:

He claimed that Obama won’t declare martial law or force people into internment camps just yet because “they’re going to take the street garbage and they’re going to take the illegal immigrants and they’re going to warp the entire election.”

“He’s the smoothest conman America’s ever seen in the White House. … He’s performing along the lines of any other petty dictator,” Savage said. “He is Al Sharpton with a smoother act.”

With economic malaise on the horizon and any number of triggers ready to set things into motion, military site Deagel.com recently posted their global forecast for 2025. The site, rumored to be a front for various alphabet intelligence agencies, says that America will soon see a large reverse migration as those who came here seeking riches and safety will emigrate out of the country following a serious, multi-year crisis.

According to the report the economy of the United States will dwindle from a GDP of $17.4 trillion today to just over $800 billion in the next 10 years – a decline of about 95% with respect to the goods and services produced within our own borders. Such a decline would be staggering, but it’s not the most ominous aspect of the report.

According to Deagel, the real concern is the adverse effects on our population, which is currently just under 319 million. If the forecast, which does not include the possibility of war or widespread pandemic in its analysis, is accurate then America may experience an event so massive that some 78% of our population would be wiped out, leaving just 68 million people living on American soil by 2025.

The key element to understand the process that the USA will enter in the upcoming decade is migration. In the past, specially in the 20th century, the key factor that allowed the USA to rise to its colossus status was immigration with the benefits of a demographic expansion supporting the credit expansion and the brain drain from the rest of the world benefiting the States.

The collapse of the Western financial system will wipe out the standard of living of its population while ending ponzi schemes such as the stock exchange and the pension funds. The population will be hit so badly by a full array of bubbles and ponzi schemes that the migration engine will start to work in reverse accelerating itself due to ripple effects thus leading to the demise of the States. This unseen situation for the States will develop itself in a cascade pattern with unprecedented and devastating effects for the economy.

Jobs offshoring will surely end with many American Corporations relocating overseas thus becoming foreign Corporations! We see a significant part of the American population migrating to Latin America and Asia while migration to Europe – suffering a similar illness – won’t be relevant. Nevertheless the death toll will be horrible. Take into account that the Soviet Union’s population was poorer than the Americans nowadays or even then. The ex-Soviets suffered during the following struggle in the 1990s with a significant death toll and the loss of national pride. Might we say “Twice the pride, double the fall”? Nope. The American standard of living is one of the highest, far more than double of the Soviets while having added a services economy that will be gone along with the financial system. When pensioners see their retirement disappear in front of their eyes and there are no servicing jobs you can imagine what is going to happen next. At least younger people can migrate. Never in human history were so many elders among the population. In past centuries people were lucky to get to their 30s or 40s.

The American downfall is set to be far worse than the Soviet Union’s one. A confluence of crisis with a devastating result.

With the predicted mass migration and drop in economic productivity will come other changes, according to Deagel. Military expenditures will drop significantly from $756 billion annually to $7.2 billion, and population density will drop from the current 33 inhabitants living per square kilometer to just 7 people taking up the same space ten years from now.

The report is certainly controversial, especially given that the source is unclear. The site claims to be a ‘Guide to Military Equipment and Civil Aviation’ that is maintained by private individuals who have no relationship whatsoever with the government. But some sources have reported that Deagel has done business in one form or fashion with various intelligence groups.

Thus, we publish this report with some hesitation and a healthy bit of skepticism, yet find it compelling enough given the current global environment that it may be of interest to readers.

The idea that a major depopulation event in the United States can happen as a result of a widespread crisis is a topic we’ve covered previously. The Center For Security Policy published a report in 2010 outlining the dangers posed by a targeted electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the United States. According to that report, which has been shared with Congress, up to 90% of Americans could die within a year:

And experts forecast if such an attack were a success, it effectively could throw the U.S. back into an age of agriculture.

“Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can’t support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity,” said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.

An EMP threat is certainly a completely different set of circumstances than an economic collapse, at least initially. But as survival author James Rawles notes in his fictional, yet quite believable, account of economic collapse in his widely popular book Patriots: A Novel Of Survival In The Coming Collapse, the notion that the economic system could break down to such an extent as to cause a major die-off in America is a distinct, albeit improbable, possibility.

In fact, the U.S. government has been training for just such a scenario in recent years, a concern highlighted by popular radio talk show host Mark Levin:

I’ll tell you what I think they’re simulating.

The collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that’s what happens when an economy collapses.

I’m not talking about a recession. I’m talking about a collapse, when people are desperate, when they can’t get food or clothing, when they have no way of going from place to place, when they can’t protect themselves.

There aren’t enough police officers on the face of the earth to adequately handle a situation like that.

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Most Corrupt States in U.S.

From bribery and kickbacks, to embezzlement and election crime, the American politician has been involved in them all. While some states with more politicians can be expected to have more corruption, as these graphics show it is not always the case.

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